Did you know that over the years Montgomery County, Virginia has been home to over 25 different newspapers?
The Montgomery Museum has issues from six of these newspapers: The Montgomery News Messenger (Also known as the Montgomery Messenger and the News Messenger), Blacksburg News, Blacksburg Messenger, Blacksburg Sentinel, Blacksburg Sun and the Radford News Journal. Some are single issues, while others are complete months or years of a publication.
Browsing through the July 1969 issues of the News Messenger was fascinating. Here are just a few interesting tidbits:
- “Notes about Blacksburg for the newcomers…we have a volunteer fire department and first aid crew…when a whistle blows, followed by a siren, that’s a fire call…a siren blowing by itself is a first aid call.”
- “Three Montgomery County Industries played a part in the flight of the Apollo 11 moon shot and lunar landing which occurred over the weekend. Poly-Scientific, Electro Tech Corp., and Corning Glass each produced products used in the successful landing on the moon and relaying pictures to people on earth. Montgomery County residents along with millions of other persons watched television screens for the historic landing and first steps on the surface of the moon.”
- ”Lt JG Henry Collins, Jr. formerly of Christiansburg, is one of the officers from his squadron that have been selected to take part in the recovery of the moon flight astronauts.”
The newspapers also have columns written for local communities giving information about people living in those areas. These columns may mention who is in the hospital, who has visitors, who is traveling, as well as many other details of their lives. The July 1969 newspaper issues feature columns from at least 25 different areas including Christiansburg, Newport, Alleghany-Otey, Mt. Tabor, Luster’s Gate, Long-Shop McCoy, Riner, Merrimac, Ellett, Ironto, Centerville, Lafayette, Vicker, Price’s Fork and more.
Virginia Tech also houses many historic Montgomery County newspapers. Others are found at the Library of Virginia, the Virginia Historical Society and the College of William and Mary. You can find a listing of Montgomery County newspapers from those locations at http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/VNP/results.asp?rl=Montgomery&rt=County.
Some of the newspapers at the Montgomery Museum are housed in the museum library, others are housed offsite or in closed storage. If you would like to use the newspapers at the museum, you should call ahead and make an appointment to ensure that the issues you are interested in are available for your use.
Occasionally I run across a reference to an occupation that I am not familiar with. The obituary of George W. Lovern in the Montgomery News (Montgomery County, Virginia) in 1928 lists George’s occupation as wreck car master. After checking out several sites on historic occupations and railroad occupations, I had no luck finding out more about this occupation. However, I finally found the answer from Kenneth Miller of the Norfolk and Western Historical Society. He explained the term as follows:
When I began researching my family history many years ago, several family stories were passed down to me. For example, I didn’t know anything about the wife of my great, great, great grandfather, Samuel Theodore Reese. The family story was that she ran away with another man when their three sons were very young. No one living even knew her name, because the family had never talked about her.